The Tao of Pooh Study Guide

Benjamin Hoff grew up in a farmhouse in rural Sylvan, Oregon, which is now a suburb of Portland. As a child, he spent much of his time playing in the woods, which partially inspired his later interest in Taoism. He also spent plenty of time sick in bed, which led to his love for reading (and especially the Winnie-the-Pooh books). He inherited his father’s interest in Asian culture and studied Asian Art at the Evergreen State College in Washington. After his graduation in 1973, he worked a series of odd jobs in fields ranging from graphic design and music to antiques restoration and investigative reporting. In his spare time, he studied T’ai Chi Ch’uan, Japanese tree pruning, and Japanese tea ceremony. He wrote The Tao of Pooh and his earlier book about Taoism, The Way to Life, on nights and weekends while working as a tree pruner in the Portland Japanese Garden. Even though it received negative reviews at first, The Tao of Pooh eventually became a New York Times bestseller and helped popularize Taoism in the United States. Hoff followed it up with a sequel, The Te of Piglet, which also became a bestseller despite receiving unfavorable reviews. He also spent years researching Opal Whiteley, an Oregon writer and naturalist whose childhood diary turned her into a celebrity in the 1920s. Hoff’s book about Whiteley, The Singing Creek Where the Willows Grow, helped build new interest in her life and legacy—as well as scrutiny into the authenticity of her writings. Hoff never became as popular as his books, which frustrated him throughout much of his life. He largely blamed his publisher and eventually got into a series of bitter, public arguments with them. In 2006, he wrote an essay called “Farewell to Authorship” and announced that he would no longer write books, and in 2018, he publicly took back the copyright for The Tao of Pooh from his publisher, preventing new editions from being printed.

The ancient Chinese philosophers Lao-tse and Chuang-tse founded Taoism in the fourth century B.C.E. Five hundred years later, one of their followers, Zhang Taoling, began spreading Taoist teachings around China. Taoling declared himself a Celestial Master and founded the Way of the Five Pecks of Rice, which successfully rebelled against the ruling Han dynasty and established an independent religious state. Over centuries, many Chinese philosophers, religious leaders, and rulers worked to integrate Taoism with Confucian and Buddhist ideas. Some emperors adopted a mix of these doctrines as an official state religion, while others favored Confucianism or Buddhism over Taoism (especially from the 17th through 20th centuries). However, Taoism has seen a substantial revival since the mid-20th century and especially the 1980s, both in China and in the West. Indeed, most recent Western interest in Taoism has been tied to New Age and spiritualist movements, which are often at odds with academics who study Taoism in universities. Benjamin Hoff’s books have played a significant role in this controversy: many Taoists praise him for introducing the religion to a broader audience, while many scholars argue that he oversimplifies and misrepresents the religion. Some of these scholars even argue that the “Popular Western Taoism” dominant in the U.S. has essentially nothing to do with traditional Chinese Taoism. Today, Taoist practices like Tai Chi and Qigong are increasingly popular in the United States, both within immigrant communities and among the general public.

In The Tao of Pooh, Benjamin Hoff analyzes A.A. Milne’s wildly popular children’s books Winnie-the-Pooh (1926) and The House at Pooh Corner (1928) through the lens of Taoism. In particular, he cites the two classic Taoist texts from the 4th century B.C.E.: Lao-tse’s Tao Te Ching and the writings of Chuang-tse. Hoff’s other works include The Way to Life (1981), which is his own interpretation of the Tao Te Ching, and his sequel to The Tao of Pooh, The Te of Piglet (1992), in which he explains the concept of Te (inner power) and further develops his ecological critique of Western civilization. Hoff’s biography of writer Opal Whiteley, The Singing Creek Where the Willows Grow (1986), won an American Book Award in 1988. In his last book, The House on the Point (2002), Hoff reinterpreted the classic Hardy Boys novel The House on the Cliff (1927). French professor Henri Maspero is largely credited with introducing the West to Taoism with works like Taoism and Chinese Religion (1971). Other popular Western books on Taoism include Alan Watts’s Tao: The Watercourse Way (1975) and Eva Wong’s Taoism: An Essential Guide (1996). Academics like Michael Saso and Livia Kohn have also written extensively about Taoism in English. Saso’s notable works include The Gold Pavilion: Taoist Ways of Peace, Healing, and Long Life (1995), and Kohn’s include Daoism and Chinese Culture (2001) and the Daoism Handbook (2005). The Journal of Daoist Studies is still published yearly in the United States.